Why He's No. 27

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, Comedy Central's flagship program, enjoys ratings other news channels can only dream about. And with a solid foothold in a generation of emerging leaders and professionals, his Emmy award-winning show is influential enough to be wooed by politicians and feared by authorities -- all for making people laugh.

Back Stage

Jon Stewart (born Jonathan Stuart Leibowitz on November 28, 1962) is an American comedian, satirist, actor, writer, and producer. He is best known as the host of Comedy Central’s The Daily Show and for his political satire. Jon Stewart was born in New York City and grew up in Lawrence, New Jersey, where he attended Lawrence High School. His father, Donald Leibowitz, is a physicist at The College of New Jersey and his mother, Marian, is an educational consultant. His parents divorced when he was nine years old. He and his older brother, Larry, stayed with their mother. While attending Lawrence High School, he was a member of the school band as a French horn player. Stewart has said that he was subjected to considerable harassment from some of his classmates as he was the only Jewish student. He describes his high school self as "very into Eugene Debs and a bit of a leftist." He graduated from Lawrence High School third in his class. With a reputation for being a funny man even in school, Jon Stewart moved to New York City in 1986 to try his hand at the comedy club circuit, but he did not muster the courage to get on stage until the following year. He made his stand-up debut at The Bitter End, the same place where his comedic idol, Woody Allen, began. He began using the stage name "Jon Stewart" by dropping his last name and changing the spelling of his middle name "Stuart" to "Stewart". While he often jokes this is because people had difficulty with the pronunciation of Leibowitz or it "sounded too Hollywood" (a reference to Lenny Bruce’s joke on the same theme), Stewart has implied that the name change was actually due to a strained relationship with his father, with whom Stewart no longer has any contact.

Stewart became a regular at the Comedy Cellar where he was the last performer every night. For two years, he would perform at 2am while developing his comedic style. In 1989, he landed his first television job as a writer for Caroline’s Comedy Hour. In 1991, he began hosting Comedy Central’s Short Attention Span Theatre. In 1992, Stewart hosted the short-lived You Wrote It, You Watch It on MTV, which invited viewers to send in their stories to be acted out by the comedy troupe The State. In 1993, he was a finalist to replace David Letterman who was leaving NBC, but Conan O’Brien was hired instead. Later that year, Stewart developed his own talk show at MTV. Despite the quick cancellation of his previous MTV show, the network was still eager to work with him. The Jon Stewart Show was the first talk show on that network and was an instant hit, becoming the second highest-rated MTV show behind Beavis and Butt-head. In 1994, Paramount pulled the plug on The Arsenio Hall Show and, with new corporate sibling MTV (through MTV parent Viacom’s acquisition of the studio), launched an hour-long syndicated late-night version of The Jon Stewart Show. Many local affiliates had moved Hall’s show to 2am during its decline. Stewart’s show inherited such early morning timeslots in many cities. Ratings were dismal and the show was cancelled in June 1995. In 2007, the New York Post reported that Stewart met with NBC Universal CEO Jeff Zucker, in what is believed to have been an initial attempt to lure the comedian to replace Jay Leno as host of The Tonight Show in 2009. Conan O'Brien had previously been announced as Leno's replacement. Although best known for his work on The Daily Show, Stewart has also had roles in several films and television series. He also appeared in Half Baked as an “enhancement smoker”, in Big Daddy as Adam Sandler’s roommate, and in the documentary The Aristocrats. Stewart often makes fun of his appearances in the high-profile flop Death to Smoochy, in which he played a treacherous television executive, and the animated film Doogal, where he played a blue spring named Zeebad that shot a freeze ray from his moustache. In 2007, Stewart made a cameo appearance as himself in Evan Almighty which starred former Daily Show correspondent Steve Carell. In the movie, Stewart was seen on a television screen poking fun at Evan Backster (Steve Carell) for building an ark. The show looked like the set of the Daily Show. On January 5, 2006, Stewart was officially announced as the host of the 78th Academy Awards (Oscars), which were held at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood on March 5. Responding to press questions at the time of his selection, Stewart remarked: "As a performer, I’m truly honored to be hosting the show. Although, as an avid watcher of the Oscars, I can’t help but be a little disappointed with the choice. It appears to be another sad attempt to smoke out Billy Crystal." (According to The New York Times, Oscar producer Gil Cates knew Crystal was going to be performing 700 Sundays during the time period and was not able to host.) On the Monday before the Oscars, Stewart told Larry King that he was more "excited" than nervous about the job and joked that if he turns out a failure, he could be "bumped down to public access". When asked what the opening would be, the comedian chastised himself by comparing a Stewart opening to a "Gene Rayburn homage". Instead, the opening segment, preceding Stewart’s monologue, featured several recent hosts “declining” to host the show.

Forcaste

Forget about Charles Gibson and Brian Williams -- former stand-up comedian Jon Stewart has become America's most trusted source for news thanks to the uncanny success of The Daily Show. "I mostly work on writing the show," he explains. "We have a talented crew of writers and I'm like the managing editor. I am the fake Lou Grant of the fake news world." And the astounding nine Emmy Awards he's racked up over the course of his career serve as a small reminder of his unprecedented talent.